SiC/SiC FUEL CLADDING BY NITE PROCESS FOR INNOVATIVE LWR-CONCEPT AND PROCESS DEVELOPMENT OF FUEL PIN ASSEMBLY TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

SiC/SiC fuel cladding is a challenge to achieve a superior safety for light water reactors. A project aiming to produce just SiC/SiC cladding tube without zircaloy has been launched at Muroran Institute of Technology in Japan. The project named SCARLET is based on the NITE SiC/SiC technology. The NITE method has the potential to produce the cladding tube and the fuel pin assembly, but many technological issues, especially, relating to the mass production technologies need to be solved. The present paper will introduce the project SCARLET, the concepts of advances NITE SIC/SiC fabrication techniques, including new intermediate materials and SiC/SiC preform fabrication techniques. This paper also reports assembly techniques of SiC/SiC fuel pins.